Ambulatory Clinic Rotation

The goal of the ambulatory clinic rotation is to develop the fellow’s confidence and skills in the initial evaluation and longitudinal follow-up of patients with rheumatic complaints in the outpatient setting including:

• Development of techniques to evaluate individual patients response to therapy over time.
• Maintenance of an internal medicine knowledge base while emphasizing the evaluation of rheumatic complaints.
• Experience in reviewing outside records and incorporating them into the rheumatologic evaluation.
• Development of methods to relate to patients with chronic illness.
• Development of skills to rapidly and efficiently evaluate both new and follow-up patients.
• Experience in communication of evaluation to patients primary care physician.

The rheumatology fellow is provided with a minimum of two half-day ambulatory clinics during the first year of clinical training and a minimum of one-half day clinic during the second 12 months of clinical training. Fellows have typically arranged three to four half-day clinics during each of the two years of clinical training. During each clinic one to three new patients and four to eight return patients are seen by each trainee. All new and return patient evaluations are supervised by an attending rheumatology faculty member which includes review of pertinent history, physical examination and the decision making process involved in arriving at the clinical impression and plan.